Free checklist
Product Hunt launch-day outreach checklist
Launch day is not a leaderboard. It is a few hours where people who already hang around Product Hunt will look at your page, leave a sentence, and disappear unless you answer them. This is a checklist for that work. It is not a live rank tracker, and Founder CRM does not watch Product Hunt for you overnight on a server.
What this is
A printed-out style checklist. Tick the boxes in your own notes. Nothing here polls Product Hunt, scores comments, or emails you when you move a place.
If you wanted a dashboard that refreshes the homepage, this is not that. If you wanted to remember who asked a real question at 11am, keep going.
Night before
- Maker profile is complete. Photo, one-line bio, and an X link under Links. People who like the product will look you up. Empty Links is a dead end.
- X DMs are open if you want DMs. Founder CRM can later keep makers who list X and have DMs open. It cannot invent a Message button that is not there.
- You are on Launch Team as Maker. Hunter-only is a different job. If you built it, the badge should say so.
- First comment on your own product is already written: what it is, who it is for, and one honest limitation. Not a feature dump.
- Thirty minutes blocked after go-live for replies, not for refreshing rank. Rank is noise. A person who asked a question is not.
Launch morning
- Post the page. Then stay on the page. Do not open analytics in another tab first.
- Reply to every comment as a person. Restate what they asked. If they are a maker of something adjacent, say so. Do not paste the same paragraph.
- Thank the hunter in public once. Do not turn the thread into a vote request.
- When someone leaves a useful note, save who they are, the comment, and the product URL. A notes app is fine until you have twenty of these.
- Skip the people who only wrote "congrats" unless you already know them. The useful comments name a use, a doubt, or a comparison.
During the day
Adjacent launches are other founders in the same room. A useful comment on their page is allowed. A drive-by "check mine" is not.
- Read their first comment and the first two replies before you write anything.
- Leave one specific note, or leave none.
- If you talk, save them. Tomorrow you will not remember which launch it was.
- Do not run a spray of identical comments across the homepage. Product Hunt readers can see the pattern, and so can you.
The day after
- Open the list of people who asked something. Answer anything you deferred.
- DM only where DMs are open and you have a reason that is about their product or their question, not your rank.
- Write a follow-up date. Launch week is when people still remember the thread. Two weeks later they do not.
- Stop refreshing the launch. The remaining work is conversations, not placement.
When Founder CRM helps
Founder CRM is a free Chrome extension. You describe who you want. It can open Product Hunt in the Chrome session you are already signed into, keep makers who fit, and put them in a side panel with a next action. You write every comment and every DM.
It does not track homepage rank, send launch-day emails, or post on your behalf. There is no Founder CRM account. Chrome Web Store approval is coming soon. Install Founder CRM from the install page if you want it today.
More free pages: buyer-phrase keywords and GummySearch if you came from Reddit research tools.
Questions founders ask
- Does this track my Product Hunt rank live?
- No. It is a static checklist. Founder CRM also does not host a rank tracker.
- Can Founder CRM message makers for me?
- No. It finds people and reminds you. You type and send.
- What if I only hunted, and did not build the product?
- Treat this as a hunter day: be useful on the page, and do not collect makers as if they owe you a conversation.
Install Founder CRM
Describe today's makers, or the people who commented on your launch, and keep them in a side panel. You still write every message.